Illumination power requirements for an MCT APD vs. a COTS camera at 1.645um

Joshua Follansbee; Kayla Frye; Nicholas Hui; Casey Clark; Ronald Driggers; Matthew Kalensky

doi:10.1117/12.3027363

7 October 2024 Illumination power requirements for an MCT APD vs. a COTS camera at 1.645um

Joshua Follansbee, Kayla Frye, Nicholas Hui, Casey Clark, Ronald Driggers, Matthew Kalensky

Proceedings Volume 13149, Unconventional Imaging, Sensing, and Adaptive Optics 2024; 1314909 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3027363
Event: Optical Engineering + Applications, 2024, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Active imaging techniques can provide increased signal-to-noise ratio over passive imaging approaches, particularly in the reflective infrared bands (NIR, SWIR, and eSWIR) where passive solar illumination is reduced relative to the visible band. However, providing sufficient illuminator power at long range can introduce severe SWaP tradeoffs for system designers, as the strength of the illumination for a resolved laser spot scales proportionally to the inverse square of the illuminator-to-target distance. Active systems must therefore use illuminator photons efficiently. Avalanche photodiodes (APDs) offer high gain in the electronic domain, allowing the detection of a small number of photons by boosting the signal above the floor imposed by read noise. We compare the contrast-to-noise ratio performance of a mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT) APD camera and a COTS InGaAs SWIR camera with an illuminator at 1.645[um] as a function of illuminator power. Factors affecting performance are discussed.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Joshua Follansbee, Kayla Frye, Nicholas Hui, Casey Clark, Ronald Driggers, and Matthew Kalensky "Illumination power requirements for an MCT APD vs. a COTS camera at 1.645um", Proc. SPIE 13149, Unconventional Imaging, Sensing, and Adaptive Optics 2024, 1314909 (7 October 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3027363

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